I had planned on writing a blog post all about the many reasons using almost all organic ingredients is hard for us (our organic colors are so much more difficult to use than artificial ones, our powdered sugar clumps up more [sounds like not a big problem, but it REALLY IS!], it costs often twice as much, distributors [which make it easy to actually buy good stuff] are hard to come by (every day I ask Baldor, my Fancy Stuff Distributor, about a cool ingredient they’re advertising: “Do you have it organic? Do you have anything cool organic?” They have nothing cool organic, my friends, except our chocolate, which Tcho arranged for them to get, just for us.), our sugarwork is never pure white because of our comparatively unrefined sugar, etc etc forever!) but, you know, vacation stepped in and all that.

My point is: no matter what, we’re committed to organic. Even if it had absolutely no health benefits for the human beings who eat the produce (which, see below, it totes does)! Just the benefits to the farmworkers (not being exposed to zillions of chemicals) and the Earth are enough.

Organic is a very complicated issue. (If you’re interested, I’ve been hashing it out over on Twitter for the past half day) But right now, for us, buying from beyond-organic local farmers (who go above and far beyond the USDA organic model), and from faraway organic producers is our methodology.

Which, honestly, is kinda weird for chocolate.

Almost all cacao pods are unsprayed because pesticides cost money cacao farmers do not have. They also can’t generally afford to pay for organic certification. But we buy organic chocolate anyway, and to be honest, partly it’s because in the US that means something to consumers, even if it doesn’t actually mean anything at the source except that a lot of paperwork has been filled out and a lot of fees have been paid.